#8. One Day I'll Have The Pirate Sword

8. One Day I'll Have The Pirate Sword

Today I opened my childhood with a key from a stranger.
Large and small at the same time, the door was impossible to see with my eyes open.
The key was made from a Barbie dolls leg and cried like a dolphin when I turned it.
My mothers voice rippled through my blood like a flat rock being spiked across a pond.
She’s singing to me of roses and mittens, oh,
Of all of her favorite things.
Behind her my father picks up a stone and shows my little brother how to whip it at just the right angle.
Skip.
Skip.
Skip.
Splash.
My kid brother walks to the edge of the wet world and pick up a smooth flyer, he glances over his shoulder at me, and my heart purrs
The way my first kitten did after she chewed on my ring finger the day we brought her home.
He launches the stone and it soars towards the water and sinks.
My father frowns.
He could never see.
Why couldn’t he see?
Why couldn’t he see when my brother’s toss hit the liquid lake it became a monstrous sailing sting ray
It soared through the water like a shooting star over my hammock that night we swore we saw new life in the sky.
Brown paper packages tied up with string…
My mother consoles the frustrated 5yr old.
My father takes a walk
A pink kickball whizzes over my head and I throw it back.
“Out! You’re up Ashley!”
It’s my turn to kick and I’m nervous again. What if Danny sees me mess up?
What if I fall down and everyone laughs?
The pitch, the kick, the pop up, out.
“Out!”
The smile on my bullies face turns into daggers hanging from a line.
Laugh all you want.
Laugh your blades dull.
Laugh all you want you pirate. … you pirate?
I have long black hair and a small dagger and … a hook!
My little brother comes flying into view from the distance, Peter Pan!
Why does he have my sword?
“They’re my toys,” he says with that grin of his, “I want the big sword, that way I will beat you Captain Hook!”
I feel myself yelling to Mom that it’s not fair but it’s too late, he’s snatched my dagger and all I’m left with is my hook.
“Where is my crew? Where are my men? Bad Form!” I cry.
Peter Pan smiles.
“Hook is a codfish, a codfish, a codfish.”
I’m swimming.
I’m a mermaid.
We’re in a pool and the only person I trusted is swimming next to me. We have dinglehoppers in our grips and we’re looking for coins that her mother threw down into the pool to collect on our respective sides.
They seem to be all discovered when she says it’s time to count and see who wins and gets to be Ariel, but I see something shining at the bottom.
My eyes glow bright red from the chlorine and down I dive to the depths of the greatest sea in the world, faster and faster through seaweed, past fish and around coral to get to the shimmery shiny little circle.
I place my hand on it and it speaks.
“You’re too big! And I’m locked!”
Not to worry, I always carry an extra DRINK ME bottle around with me; I reach into my fins and guzzle the nectar of my imagination
It tastes like a ½-melted creamsicle flavored Flintstones push-pop.
The knob opens his jaws and sucks me into an English garden.
If God had a dandelion clock that was filled with white roses instead of seeds, he must have made a wonderful wish and blew them down on this land.
I’m beaming and I bound through the burly beautiful bushes and buttery bewitching botanicals.
Music floats into my eardrums like a 1-legged Barbie floats in the birdbath.
Under it’s spell I follow through the garden until I’m walking up a woman’s back.
Her dress is the rose bed and they’re all slowly turning red.
“Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens…”
She’s standing up, get off! Please get down, Alice! Wake up! Please!
Wake up.

…
It’s Christmas morning.
I’m in my childhood room.
My mother is standing over me with coffee.
She’s worried she doesn’t have enough soy creamer and raw sugar for me.
I’m worried I don’t have enough words to tell her my dream.